Faerie Winter (12 page)

I had no teachers. Mom had taught all the other children in my town, but no one had taught me, not until this winter.

Except for Karin. What little I knew of magic—that visions were less terrible when spoken aloud, that magic could save as well as destroy—I’d learned from her. My own mother had suggested it might be best if I continue to learn from her.

I did not want to leave the Lady’s side, but neither could I lie. “She has taught me, yes.”

The Lady’s face darkened, the way storm clouds did when they blocked the sun. “Very well, Daughter. Take her, then.”

Karin’s gaze didn’t waver. “Release your hold on her first. She is under my protection, as all students are under the protection of their teachers.”

“You presume much.” The Lady released my hand and brushed her fingers lightly over my arm. Something
left me, and I fell to my knees, understanding at last how small and weak I truly was. The Lady smiled, and I flinched from the daggers in her gaze, knowing they could cut right through me. She was still beautiful, though, beautiful as a new-sharpened blade.

Karin drew me to my feet. There was anger in her silver eyes, and a hint of the Lady’s perfect beauty as well. I fought the urge to bow before her, too, as if something of glamour lingered in me yet. My head dipped, just a little, and Karin lifted it.

“Not to me, Liza.” She whispered the words close to my ear, so low I doubted even the Lady could hear. “Never to me.”

I looked at her, knew her. She was Karin, only Karin. For some reason the thought brought tears to my eyes, and I was too weak to fight them.

“It is good to see you well, Daughter.” Only the faintest echo of storm-cloud anger lingered on the Lady’s face. “I look forward to learning more of the events that have brought you here this day. Will you and your”—she paused meaningfully—“
student
join me for a glass of wine? A few pre-Iron bottles yet remain, and I have brought one with me.”

“I truly regret that I cannot join you.” Karin bowed her head. “But my student and I have much to discuss. I am sure you understand.”

“Oh, I understand.” How had I ever found the Lady’s voice anything but threatening? “You will do as you must. As shall I. I am certain we will meet again. In the meantime, I have some matters of my own to tend to. Did you know, Daughter, that Tara yet lives?”

“I have heard something of it.” If Karin had any reaction to the words, I couldn’t hear it in her voice.

The Lady had said she meant to go after Mom. I shivered as snowflakes landed in my hair, melted, and trickled down my neck. How could I have forgotten?

I couldn’t do anything for Mom if I remained here under the Lady’s power, any more than I could help Matthew or Kyle or—

Johnny. “There’s a boy from my town here.”

The Lady raised her pale eyebrows. “Is that one your student too, Daughter?”

Karin looked down, and the ragweed vine unwound from around her boot to retreat into the snow. “No.”

We couldn’t leave him. I had to make Karin understand.

She nodded at her mother, a respectful gesture. “Root and Branch and all Powers go with you.”

“And with you.” There was no warmth in the Lady’s voice.

Karin turned from her mother, and she walked away. Just like that. For a moment I didn’t move, as if glamour
held me still. The Lady gave me a long, disdainful look. “Go on, then. Follow your teacher.”

I hurried after Karin, catching up with her where the path left the town. My footsteps creaked against the damp snow; hers made no sound. “We can’t leave him there.”

“I have no intention of it.” Karin didn’t slow her pace. “But first I must get you to safety. We will think on what to do after that.”

I didn’t slow down, either, but I told myself I’d return for Johnny, one way or another. No one deserved to be left helpless under the Lady’s power. At least I’d gotten Matthew free, and maybe Kyle as well. Kyle had run in the same direction we now walked.
He couldn’t possibly outrun a hawk
. “I’ll come back.” I spoke the words aloud, making them a promise.

The path turned to follow the frozen river. We picked our way downstream along its uneven bank. Snow landed on my cheeks and bare hands. “You came for me.” My voice seemed loud in the chill air. I lowered it, though there was no sign the Lady had followed us. “I called you, and you came.”

“It is not the first time.” Karin smiled, as if it were a small thing.

It was not a small thing. “That’s twice you’ve saved me.”

Karin frowned, and the green leaves around her wrist stirred restlessly. “I would not declare either of us saved yet. The Lady is a powerful enemy, and she’ll not soon forget the insults we’ve exchanged this day.”

She’d done worse than insult me. “I won’t forget, either.” I reached for my knife and remembered that the Lady had it. Until I’d met her, I’d had no idea how helpless I truly was.

Panic shuddered through me, and once I started shaking, I couldn’t stop. I thought of the Lady’s fingers brushing my hand, my hair, of how I’d smiled as she’d talked about killing my mother, of how I’d slept at her command. I would have done anything she asked of me—anything. Even now it would take but a word from her, and I’d be nothing more than a weapon in her hands once more. I stumbled, nearly fell.

Karin’s hand caught my shoulder, steadying me. “Liza.” She took my face in her hands, making me meet her eyes. “You are safe for now. You must believe that.”

Safety was an illusion. I’d always known it. Matthew had, too. I thought of how he’d snarled at me, how he’d flopped down at the Lady’s feet. “Nothing’s safe.” Even my voice shook. He’d forgotten me, for no other reason than that the Lady wished him to.

Karin’s gaze hardened, and I saw anger once more. She wrapped her arms around me, her posture more
protective than comforting. “I am so very sorry for all she has done to you.” There was steel in Karin’s words, and for the first time, I almost believed she had fought in the War. “You have my word that I will do all I can to shield you from her.”

She didn’t promise that it would be enough. I wouldn’t have believed her if she had. I managed to still my shaking. “I will do what I can not to need protecting.”

“I know that.” Karin nodded respectfully as she drew away. “I watched you set off to rescue your mother, though you had little chance of success. I heard of how you brought her out of dying Faerie, and brought my brother back from beyond death as well, at no small risk to yourself. You need not convince me, Liza, of your strength or your will to face hardship. I’ll do what I can just the same.”

The snow grew steadier as we started walking again, away from Clayburn and my town both, toward Karin and Caleb’s town. I wanted to stop, to turn around—I couldn’t bring myself to take a single step back toward the Lady. I hadn’t thought myself a coward before.

A length of brown kudzu broke through the snow, reached for Karin, then sighed and fell still. “Understand, Liza, that my people take the bond between teacher and student quite seriously, as seriously as that between parent
and child. The Lady is no more free to directly interfere with that bond than anyone else. This gains us some time, if nothing else.”

I reached once more for the knife I didn’t have. “Who
is
she?”

Snow landed in Karin’s clear hair and froze there. “My mother has gone by many names—the Lady of Air and Darkness, the Ruler of the Realm, the Queen of Faerie.”

I hadn’t known that Faerie had a queen. Even Before, my town had been ruled by the Council. The Council had been ruled by a governor, the governor by a congress and a court and a president. There were queens in the old stories, though. “She’s truly your mother?”

“She truly is.” There was sorrow in Karin’s voice.

That made Caleb the Lady’s son.
The children of powerful people, Liza, nothing more
. But it didn’t tell me who Mom was, or what role she and Caleb had played in the War. Cold bit my fingers and the tips of my ears. My hat and gloves were still in my pockets, along with the dried meat. I tugged the hat down over my ears, pulled my gloves up beneath my ruined sweater sleeves.

I tore a strip of meat in half and offered some to Karin. She took it and chewed slowly. I bit into my half more fiercely. The taste of smoked goat steadied me. My scarf
remained around my neck, looser now. The ends were still bound together, as if they’d been crafted that way.

Karin reached out to trace her finger along the wool. “Weaver work?” she asked.

Snow blurred the bluffs and the forest. “That’s what Elin called it.”

Karin stopped abruptly and took the scarf in her hand. “Elin.” She spoke the name slowly, as if it were strange on her tongue.

“That’s not her true name.” If it had been, I’d have gotten Johnny and Kyle well away before the Lady knew of any of us.

“No, it is not.” Karin’s voice was soft.

“The Lady sent Elin after Kyle,” I said. “As a hawk. She told her to kill him, and Elin swore she would. She’s nearly as terrible as the Lady.”

Karin shut her eyes a moment, as if my words were arrows that had found their mark. “I think you’d best tell me all that has happened since you left your town.” She started walking again.

So did I, though I knew that the more distance we put between us and the Lady, the longer it would take to return. I wasn’t sure I could face her again—I had no choice. Caleb might be in Karin’s town, and Caleb could help Ethan—but Ethan might well have died of his burns by now. Johnny was still alive, and perhaps Kyle as well.
There was still time to save them. “Karin, we have to go back.”

“If it were up to me,” Karin said, “I would tell you to stay safe behind my town’s Wall while I deal with this, for all that the Wall sleeps this winter, and so provides less protection than before.”

“It isn’t up to you?” Karin’s footprints were lighter than mine, snow already filling them in. I’d be easier for the Lady to track than she would, if it came down to that.

Karin looked into the falling snow. “Your decisions are your own. I’ll not force them on you.”

Snow landed on my scarf, my gloves. I remembered how in my vision Karin had offered to bind my mother when Caleb had refused. I hadn’t understood what her words meant then. “You could force decisions on me. Couldn’t you?”

“I will not, though more than our own lives be at stake. You are safe with me, Liza. Do you understand?”

Faerie folk cannot lie
. Something relaxed in me, a fear I hadn’t been aware of. “I understand.” I held my shoulders a little less tightly as I told Karin all that had happened, starting with Johnny, and Kyle, and the burned children who’d died of Ethan’s magic—at Elin’s command.

When I told Karin about the leaf, she stopped me, wanting to know, as the Lady had, how I’d come by it.

“Oak and ash,” Karin whispered when I told her that Mom had given it to me, and that Caleb had given it to Mom. “Kaylen, you
are
a fool.” She pronounced Caleb’s true name differently than Mom did, weaving a sound like wind through leaves into it.

I lifted an ash branch from the ground, discarded it, and picked up a longer branch. As a weapon it wasn’t much, but it felt better to have something in my hand. “His foolishness may have saved Kyle’s life.”

“I know.” Karin stroked the leaves around her wrist, as if drawing comfort from them. We veered toward the river, following a narrow track between the trees and the frozen water. I used the branch as a staff, taking some of the weight from my ankle, though already the pain there was fading.

Something green poked through the snow, bright against the whiteness.
Spring
, I thought, but it wasn’t a plant. I reached down and took a faded plastic frog in my hand. My fingers tightened around it. I remembered a row of plastic frogs, lined up at the edge of a tub.

Karin tilted her head, a question.

“Kyle’s been here.” For the first time since meeting the Lady’s eyes, I felt something other than gray despair. “He made it this far.”

T
he ice near the river’s shore was cracked, as if Kyle had run over it so swiftly it hadn’t—quite—given way beneath his weight. I listened to the water trickling beneath it. If that ice was almost too thin for a five-year-old, it would be far too thin for me. I slipped the frog into my pocket and followed the river downstream, seeking a better crossing.

Karin touched my arm and pointed upward. A hawk circled above the bluffs—Elin? Did that mean Kyle was nearby, too? Or did it mean we were already too late?

The ice remained thin, but—there. A row of rocks jutted out of the half-frozen water. I followed the stepping stones across, careful of my balance on the slick rocks. Karin followed more gracefully, as if ice were a small matter to her. On the other side she leaned down
and shoved her hands into the snow. Yellow Bermuda grass pushed through it to wrap around her arms. Karin closed her eyes, listening to something I couldn’t hear. “He passed this way,” she said.

The grasses sighed wearily and retreated back into the snow. “They’re not dead,” I said. “Not completely, not around you.”

“They are not dead.” Karin sounded as tired as the grasses had. “But they are dying. Tell me, Liza, do you believe that spring will come?”